Healthy Communities Online

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Shelley Lyford, CEO of the Gary and Mary West Foundation which is dedicated to reducing costs and improving care for America’s seniors. She discusses the launch of Civica Rx – a not for profit entity that will supply low-cost generic drugs to a consortium of partner foundations and hospitals to disrupt monopolies and price gouging in the pharmaceutical industry.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Iyah Romm, CEO of Cityblock Health, a venture with Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs aimed at improving care and outcomes for underserved populations in urban areas by deploying tech-based solutions supporting patients and care teams. He talks about Cityblock’s development of digital and telehealth tools that enable real time monitoring of patient data, and a network of interventions addressing social determinants of health.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. John Halamka, Chief Information Officer for Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston where he has launched a new endeavor: the Health Technology Exploration Center. The lab is an incubator for studying emerging technologies in health care such as telemedicine, genomics, blockchain, wearables and smart speakers like Alexa that could potentially improve clinical workflow, data sharing and outcomes.